I just was asked to review a book proposal for the first time, and it is on Scala. This got me thinking about what Scala books are there.

First, there’s the Bible, Programming in Scala: A Comprehensive Step-by-step Guide by Odersky, Spoon, and Venners. I haven’t read this but I understand it’s a beast and basically covers everything, which is what you’d expect in a book co-authored by the language’s primary author. The Scala community is nothing if not original, though, so there’s also Programming Scala: Tackle Multi-Core Complexity on the Java Virtual Machine by Subramaniam. It should not be confused with Programming Scala by Wampler and Payne! I haven’t seen the latter as it only came out a few weeks ago, but one can hope there’s good gossip about Twitter’s use of Scala in the latter, since Alex Payne is a developer there. I personally own Beginning Scala. I can say from experience that this book is a fantastic introduction to Scala and introduces its concepts in a clear and logical progression.

It is my impression that all of these books are designed to take an experienced (Java) developer entirely new to Scala and to teach them the language. Having progressed in my understanding of Scala, I am now looking for a book targeted towards intermediate Scala developers, one that doesn’t spend much if any time on basic Scala concepts, but rather helps me master things like the type system, Actors, and wringing the best performance out of my code. Can you suggest any books?